by C. Gockel
She’d laughed despite herself...and been angry at Loki ever since. Well, not so angry that they hadn’t had sex after her divorce with Njörðr. The anger had been fun in bed; what hadn’t been so fun were all her lectures afterwards on the importance of upright behavior, and how Loki disgraced his entire race with his cheap antics, and ‘justified the Aesir’s belief that jotuns are just slightly better than humans.’
Loki is snapped out of his reverie with the sound of Thor’s hand smacking Ullr on the back. “If it isn’t Scarlip,” says Thor with a cruel smile.
Ullr snorts. He is the bastard son of Sif, and no one knows who his father is, but he looks remarkably like Thor. Had he not been born before Thor came to court, people might believe that he is the result of an enthusiastic coupling before Thor and Sif’s marriage. But Thor had adopted the boy when he’d married Sif. Loki scowls. Thor still disputes Sif’s reputation as a whore, even with the evidence of her loose ways right before him.
Skadi looks at Helen now asleep in Loki’s arms. Her look is one of such unadulterated disapproval that the hairs on the back of Loki’s neck stand on end. Loki should ignore it, but he’s never been one for fine choices. “Something bothering you, Skadi?”
Skadi would never have let Helen live — she sees Helen’s existence as a weakness, and just another blemish on the good name of all right-thinking jotunns in Asgard. “Yes, Trickster, the monster in your arms,” she says. She’s never been one to back down either.
Ullr’s eyes go wide. Thor’s face hardens. And for a horrible instant Loki’s sharp tongue deserts him.
And then Thor says, “Ullr, look over there, a merchant is selling spun honey. Why don’t you and Skadi go get some. I would speak to Loki alone.”
The two depart through the crowd. Loki finds himself alone with Thor, revelers swinging around them drunk and oblivious.
“Out with it, Thor,” hisses Loki. “Please, state your objections to my daughter’s existence to my face rather than my back.”
Thor steps closer, so close he is in the sphere cast by Helen’s soft blue magic. “No, Fool, I will not, for I have none. It is good to see you so besotted.” He snorts. “Perhaps now you will understand that no shame is too great to endure for a child’s sake.”
He blinks and straightens suddenly. He looks as though he is confused, like his own words are shocking.
Loki’s eyes widen. He sees Thor’s eyes go to Ullr. Sif and Thor have a daughter, but no sons. Loki remembers all the times Thor has declared Ullr his ‘own son’. He remembers when Ullr was just Helen’s age, how Thor had presented the toddler with a tiny wooden sword, and then let Ullr chase him around while feigning fear. And he remembers seeing the two in the training yards for endless hours, sitting next to each other at feasts, even sharing each other’s cups of mead.
“You knew,” says Loki, the realization so strong his mouth moves of its own accord.
Thor turns to him, his eyes tired. “Of course, I’ve known the boy’s mother is a whore.” He looks down. “But the boy doesn’t, and that is what matters.”
Loki suddenly feels very small. He looks on Thor — brash, quick to anger, sometimes thick-headed Thor, and sees nobility he will never possess, compassion, and strength of will enough to hold up all of the nine realms.
“Of course,” says Loki. He can feel Helen’s drool through his shirt, and she is just beginning to get heavy in his arms. But these things are immaterial. Her magic is so thick that the crowd moving beyond the little space allowed in deference to Thor son of Odin is almost obscured. Thor holds up a hand in the pale blue mist. “A lovely color magic for a girl to have,” he says.
Loki has no words, and if he did his voice might crack.
x x x x
“My head hurts,” says Loki rubbing his temple. Amy takes a step closer; he does look pained.
And then he smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Melancholy serves no purpose,” he declares. Suddenly, by the cash register a skeleton in Halloween finery starts to clatter.
Amy’s eyes widen.
The skull begins to speak in a voice remarkably like Loki’s:
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep...
“What?” says the girl behind the counter, her eyes going wide.
“That’s awesome!” says a kid buying a gargoyle.
“It’s not supposed to do that,” says the clerk.
“Loki,” hisses Amy. But his eyes are focused on the skeleton.
The skeleton twists its head — or looks like it twists its head. Amy’s sure it’s an illusion.
“Am I dead or dreaming?” It raises a bony hand to its face. “Or both?”
“Auggghhhhh!” screams the girl at the cash register.
“Auggghhhhh!” screams the skull turning to her and the kid buying the gargoyle.
“Auggghhhhh!” screams the kid.
“Auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Screams every gargoyle and skull in the store, whether on a t-shirt or made of plaster. The lights start to blink.
“Loki!” yells Amy as people start to run.
He turns to her and grins, lights blinking above his head. “Well, I feel better.” He waggles his eyebrows. “My work here is done. Now if you will excuse me...”
And then he disappears.
The lights come back on. The skulls and assorted monsters go quiet.
A man with a shaved head and an intricate tattoo of a hammer on his bicep turns to her. “Did you just say Loki?”
“Ummm...” says Amy.
The man points his finger at her, his lip curling up in a snarl. “He’s evil! I’m a pagan; I know!”
From behind Amy comes a woman’s voice. “I’m a pagan, too, asshole. Loki’s not evil.”
Amy turns to see a woman her age, with a 1940’s retro hairstyle, wearing glasses with thick black rims. The woman is staring at the skin-head hammer-tattoo guy.
“Ummm...” says Amy.
The man snorts and rolls his eyes. “What is it with chicks and Loki?”
The girl smirks and sashays her hips. “Maybe we just like his silver tongue.” She winks at Amy and smiles. “Am I right?”
Amy blinks. “He’s kind of funny, but I’ve never thought of him as particularly eloquent.”
The woman’s smile drops.
The guy is just staring at her.
“I mean, if he existed...” says Amy slowly. She’s not supposed to talk about Loki.
They both scowl.
Amy’s eyes widen. “Ummm...bye?” She practically runs out of the store.
It isn’t until she’s panting just inside the comic book store, in the mist that’s become full-fledged rain, staring at a Captain America comic, that she realizes she hasn’t asked all of Steve’s questions...but she thinks she’s learned something more important than all of his questions put together.
Chapter 6
It’s 7:05 AM. In the elevator of the Presidential Towers apartment complex, Steve checks his email. There is one from Amy that he doesn’t read past the first sentence — he’s going to debrief her later in the day anyway, and several from Merryl, Brett, and Jameson. The one from Merryl about putting plastic explosives into goat carcasses before feeding the carcasses to trolls seems helpful.
The elevator dings, he puts his phone away, and he walks out of the building between another man and woman in business suits.
The streets are still wet from the rain Chicago had last night. The sky is clear and blue now, but unfortunately, not empty. Steve scowls. From over his head comes an all too familiar voice and the flap of wings. “Good morning, Steve, rawk, rawk.”
“Did Claire get home safely, rawk, rawk?”
Steve narrows his eyes. The birds hadn’t given him a rest over the week
end. They’d terrified Claire every time he’d taken her outside. Steve can feel the Glock he has at his hip. He swears it’s calling to him. He clenches his jaw and keeps walking.
“Are those ravens tame?” says the business woman beside him.
“Nooooooo!” shriek the ravens.
“Just a couple of angry birds,” says Steve.
“Steal their eggs?” says the man, laughing.
Steve’s hands clench into fists. Fortunately the man and the woman both make a left as Steve and the ravens go right. He scowls at the birds as they hop along the pavement in between short bursts of flight.
“Shouldn’t you be trailing Loki?” Steve asks as he walks down a stretch of street that is empty of passersbys.
Hopping around on the pavement about 10 feet away, one fluffs its wings. It is disturbing, but Steve’s familiar enough with them now to recognize that as a raven equivalent of a shrug.
“Nope,” says the bird.
“We’ve been assigned to watch you,” says the other, flapping to the top of the mailbox — and leaving a crap.
Steve rolls his eyes. “And to what do I owe this honor?”
The raven on the ground flaps to the air. “We’ve wondered about that. Personally, I think, rawk rawk, Odin knows what Loki will do, but you are a mystery.”
The hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand on end but he tries to keep his voice light. “What will Loki do?”
The raven lands on the ground and bobs its head. “What he always does, and then we’ll catch him!”
At that point the other raven dives headlong onto the first and starts pecking at its head with a screech. “Huginn, you idiot!!!”
The two take off into the air, blathering in a slavic sounding language the linguists at ADUO think may be related to Old Norse. Steve lets out a deep breath that isn’t quite relief. He walks on for a few more minutes, falling into step with other people on their way to work. He lets his mind empty and just focuses on traffic lights and his fellow pedestrians.
He’s only about a block away from ADUO when his cell rings. Pulling it out of his pocket he answers. “Rogers here.”
“Sir,” says Bryant. “I think we have a problem...”
“Wha—” says Steve, but then the ground beneath him trembles and from the sewer drain next to him comes a sound that makes his stomach drop. It sounds like a hiss, three octaves too low.
“We think something has infiltrated the tunnels,” says Bryant.
“I’m on my way,” Steve says, already breaking into a run.
x x x x
Loki is sitting at his computer, a large coffee, assorted croissants, and little spheres of the Promethean netting no bigger than his palm on the desk next to him. Some of the spheres have the same sort of outgrowth that surrounds Cera, remnants of Loki’s experiments with the stuff.
Picking up a croissant, he tosses its paper wrapper onto one of the mutated spheres. There is a soft pop and the wrapper sinks out of existence.
He tilts his head. They make attractive little trash disposals. And they aren’t really dangerous at these small sizes. An infant could crush one and not be harmed. Too bad he can’t market them at upscale interior design studios.
“When are you going to get me? I hate being locked up!” Cera whines.
Loki rolls his eyes. Cera is as impatient as a child...or a human. “When I can get you out.”
Unfortunately, the sphere containing Cera needs considerably more force than an infant to break it. He’s looked at the feasibility of collapsing the Board of Trade on Cera’s sphere, but Cera isn’t quite at the epicenter of where impact would be — and the tunnel and building were reinforced post 9/11. If it did work — and Loki’s not sure it would, he’d still wind up with an enormous pile of rubble to plow through to retrieve her.
His jaw tenses. He has to get to her before the Vanir. They are coming. They have to be coming...and he can do nothing and go nowhere as long as the two gates to Vanaheim are unguarded.
He looks at his computer. It’s nearly 7:30, almost market opening time and he’s in the mood for some innocent distraction. The lack of progress with Cera is making him irritable. He starts opening his trading accounts when he feels the highrise apartment he is in start to sway.
He blinks.
“Something is down here,” says Cera, sounding more annoyed than frightened.
Closing his eyes, Loki sends an apparition of himself into the tunnels. A serpent with a head so big it nearly fills the tunnel opens its mouth and tries to swallow him — and of course meets only empty air. Finding his projection in the belly of the beast, Loki withdraws back to his apartment.
Let ADUO deal with it. “Don’t worry, Cera,” he says. “It can’t hurt you.”
“It is pretty,” says Cera.
“Hmmmmm,” says Loki looking at one of the little algorithms he created to help predict the movement of the Brazilian Real. He smiles. A sure thing. Time to make a quick million or so. He purchases some futures of said currency and is about to divest himself of said contracts when the power goes out.
x x x x
Steve is standing ankle deep in water in the tunnel system beneath Chicago’s streets. The tunnels aren’t supposed to be wet. There must be a leak somewhere. He’s got one hand pressed to the headpiece in his ear, the other on his Glock. Several of the guys have their flashlights out, and there is also dim utility light behind him from one of the coal-loading platforms.
He and his team are beneath the intersection of LaSalle and Monroe, two blocks north of where the World Seed is, or as Loki calls it, Cera.
“Bryant,” Steve says into the headset at his ear. “Any sign?”
Bryant’s voice crackles back. “Negative.” He’s at the tunnel intersection of Clark and Adams, where an Internet substation and electrical power box went down minutes before. They’ve received reports of power going out all over Chicago’s downtown.
“Gonna be hard to find whatever it is down here,” says one of his agents spinning around, flashlight in one hand, M16 in the other.
Water ripples over Steve’s feet. He looks down. The little waves are coming from the west. He looks up. His guys are all standing to the north of him. Blood running cold, he says quietly, “Incoming, 9 o’clock! Take cover.”
Steve goes south and flattens himself against the wall; his boys go north, but one, Jones, the guy with the M16, turns and faces whatever is coming. Before he even has the gun raised a nightmarish shadow that looks like a giant gaping snake’s maw streaks through the intersection.
Steve can’t see his agents anymore; there is just a solid wall of dark gray something between him and them.
Over his headset he hears, “Jones is down!” And then Steve hears Brett say, “That wall has scales...don’t see any feet or nothing. I think it’s a snake. Shouldn’t be able to go backwards.”
He thinks he might be sick.
A voice sounds by Steve’s other ear. “It’s a wyrm. And no, it can’t go backwards; you’re safe for now.”
Steve jumps. There is Loki, in his armor, arms crossed over his chest, a flare of light dancing just behind him. Narrowing his eyes, Loki says, “Of course, since you’re on a grid system all it has to do is make 3 right turns and then you’re not safe anymore.”
Steve’s mouth drops. “It just...”
“Ate someone, did it?” says Loki striding forward so he is just a foot next to the gently undulating scales. “They’ll do that.”
Turning back to Steve he scowls. “Never trust a broker who doesn’t have a fully functional mobile-trading platform, Steven. In the end low commissions...Just. Are. Not. Worth. It.”
Steve’s brain draws a blank. And then his face goes hot. “Just tell me how to kill this thing!”
Loki runs his tongue over his teeth. “Try shooting it?”
Steve whips out his Glock and releases a whole clip. The scaly body twists and thrashes, the ground trembles, and something red trickles out. And then the scales resum
e their smooth slide. From the other side of the tunnel he hears the sound of more shots. The creature doesn’t even writhe.
Loki shakes his head. “That’s not going to work. I think you’ve just given it the equivalent of a bad paper cut.”
“Well, what will work!” Steve shouts.
“I’m thinking!” says Loki, crossing his arms over his chest, the scales still slipping by in the tunnel before them.
Bryant’s voice buzzes in Steve’s ear. “Agent Rogers?”
“Loki’s here,” says Steve. “I’m fine.”
“Normally,” says Loki, “a blow to the heart is how to deal with these things. Their scales in their abdomens are more delicate.”
“Did you hear that?” says Steve, pushing the headset against his ear.
“Yes,” says Bryant.
Shaking his head, Loki says, “But the tunnel is too tight. You’ll never be able get it to rear up high enough.”
“What about a goat carcass with explosives!” Steve says.
Loki turns to him, eyes wide, and looking vaguely excited. “Oh, that might be fun.” He squints one eye. “Of course, it would have to be a live goat....or goats...And it might get out of the tunnels before you have an opportunity to procure said goats. Of course, then you could aim for the heart —”
There is a shriek from somewhere down the tunnel. Loki sighs.
“Who was that?” Steve screams into his ear piece. The scales are still sliding by. How long is this damn thing?
“Check in!” says Bryant. A few seconds later, Bryant says, “Not one of ours.”
Steve closes his eyes. A civilian. Maybe a maintenance worker...His stomach falls.
“How do I kill it now?” says Steve, meeting Loki’s eyes.
Loki’s face is blank and unreadable for an instant. And then he smirks. “Cera. We lead it to Cera and let her deal with it.”
“It will eat Cera?” says Steve.
“No,” says Loki. “But you and I will lure the snake to her. When it touches Cera, she’ll...” he tilts his head towards the scales and smirks. “Do what she does to everything else.”
Steve blinks. Everything else that touches the Cera disappears. The hypothesis at ADUO is that anything that touches Cera’s Promethian containment sphere gets sucked into a vacuum. Where that vacuum leads is a source of contentious debate.
